Passwords are easily phished, captured, replayed, or otherwise compromised. To address weaknesses in passwords, two-factor authentication was developed. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is commonly deployed for sensitive applications (e.g., email, web apps, VPN) by system administrators in order to better safeguard corporate data. Unfortunately, even with a well-implemented two-factor authentication scheme, sensitive data or networks may be compromised if network endpoints are exposed to attack.
Network endpoints (e.g., a user's smartphone or laptop) may be compromised in a number of ways; in particular, vulnerabilities in operating systems, internet browsers, and plug-ins may lead to serious breaches in security. Traditionally, this issue has been dealt with by mandating installation of a host agent (e.g., a software program operating on a system that scans the system for vulnerabilities), but this solution has a number of issues. In particular, it is difficult to ensure compliance (that is, that a host agent has been installed and is up-to-date on every endpoint accessing the network) across the myriad devices in use on a computer network. Thus, there is a need in the authentication field to create a new and useful method for enforcing endpoint health standards. This invention provides such a new and useful method.